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Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Created to commemorate the students and teachers that make our communities proud, today's cakes truly deserve to be in a class of their own.

Ah, you can always count on teachers to critique your work.Just be glad they couldn't find the red gel icing.

Who knew that the HoFsTraSTudenrTGoveraNeNTAssoCiaTion were such big fans of croquet? (I think my spell check just exploded.)

Oddly enough, I believe "Happy School Social" was the name of my 3rd grade dance. Yep. Slightly sad, awkward spaces, the occasional glaring failure...gee, there are all kinds of parallels going on here.

Hey, "Alumni Mentors," thanks SOOO much for everything. You're really "great." We are SOOO "glad" you could teach us how to "communicate" properly.

And lastly....

A certain school was celebrating great scores on the TAKS, which I believe is some kind of state-mandated testing like the FCAT, which we all know teachers everywhere adore and wish they had more of. Anyway, the cake was supposed to say "Congratulations for doing an exemplary job on TAKS", and the woman ordering asked that "TAKS" be in all capital letters.

The balloons were done so well on the last one... such a shame that someone with a 6 year old skill level (or less) was assigned to the text. (and im detecting another phone order mishap here as well i think)

Yep - TAKS is Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, (when I took it it was TAAS - Texas Assessment of Academic Skills) which as a teacher (sort of) is a bunch of bull. Too much focus on scores and not enough on actually learning and retaining information. But I digress...

Those are some special cakes. Maybe the one with all the caps is a kid who forgot they weren't typing a text message or IM?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Alumni Mentors cake is actually a proper use of quotation marks. Aside from passive-aggressive emphasis, it really seems like quotation marks had another purpose... dear me, what could it be?

Oh yeah, quoting someone's words! Hence QUOTATION marks!

So as long as "Thank you Alumni Mentors" is something someone is saying--highly likely--this is a 100% correct use of quotation marks.

If it had said "Thank you Alumni 'Mentors'" or something, you would be right. But as is, it's like the Cake Wrecks community is now so spooked by quotation marks that it sets off an alarm in the brain no matter whether it's used correctly or not.

The spell-checker of my computer tried to escape my computer and set itself on fire. I think form here on out that if I am going to order a cake, I am going to the bakers with several drawings of what I want, letters and all. After the amount of time I would spend on it and coloring it, they had better return the favor. If not, I guess I'll call my solisitor.

If my theory is correct that this was quoted from a congratulatory letter by the Texas Governor (whose office is in the Capitol), and Governor Rick Perry wrote the letter himself, this is probably EXACTLY how he spelled it: "Congratulatiun for doing and Exernplary Jabon TAKS."

Looking at the last one, it appears as if the "jabon TAKS" was previously corrected. I see a deep gouge of icing under that section. I can only imagine what they could have messed up and FIXED, and still had such bad results overall!

As the submitter of the Alumni Mentors cake, I'll say that basically the reason that this cake shouldn't have quotation marks, despite being something that a person would be saying, is the same reason I'm not putting quotation marks around my comment right now.

Unless they were trying to convey, through cake, that the people who hosted the reception were quoting somebody who was not present and not the people hosting/attending the reception, then it shouldn't have quotation marks because you don't put quotation marks around your own writing. And if they WERE quoting somebody, being primarily a journalism program, they should have attributed it.

I am in LOVE with this blog! I am in Nursing school at The University of Alabama and my life gets pretty hectic, but whenever I need a good laugh I always look at this blog! You guys are AMAZING and absolutely HILARIOUS!! Thank you for giving me a good laugh when I need it most!

The TAKS cake is so perfect. The biggest problem in public education in Texas is the TAKS! When Texas went to TAKS they also made the students results part of the decision about teachers keeping their jobs and bonus'. The cake just goes to show what happens when you teach kids how to test well, but you don't actually teach them anything worth while.

Is it even remotely possible, given the horrific spelling on the rest of the 'TAKS' cake that 'TAKS' is actually supposed to be 'tax'? Like, I dunno, maybe someone is really really grateful to the guy who did their taxes and wants to congratulatiun them for their exernplary jabon?

The tests in Texas have been TASP, TAAS, and now TAKS. TAKS stands for Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills.... Which is a large baloney because some of passed in 20minutes, while some took 8 hours to pass/fail the math. Oi toledo! Poor Texas, we all fail.

Oh my gosh, the TAKS cake is so perfect. Did you see the announcement that starting in 2011 TEXAS is changing the TAKS test to STARR (State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness)? Can't wait to see how they mess that up!

'Blame Kroger'? Nononono, someone had to CHOOSE those colors, I am sure. If you blame Kroger for anything, blame it for going, "Okay, whatever you want."

That being said: AHAHAHAHAHAHA 'capital letter'. Just when I think everyone has learned their lesson (isn't there be a network of wreckorators--"Dude, don't mess that up or you'll end up on that website!!") we see another literal LOL.

This is SO funny it made me cough, and usually that is not good, but it was so good to laugh, I don't think I cared! :) LOLZERZ. I love how everything is just better with "qotes", because, yeah, that totally makes a statement (perhaps unintentional?).

Ok, so right after I left your blog I headed over to another "mommy" type blog and continued laughing my butt off. So, it's not a cake, but you gotta see this.... http://aplacecalledsimplicity.blogspot.com/2010/01/sorry-for-what.html

Thank you, Mary R, for describing the correct use of quotation marks! The fact is that we should rarely see them on cakes but all too often do.

I only saw one other reference so I must say it - capitol refers to the building in which government is housed and capital is an upper case letter (as well as the reference to a city in which a capitol building can be found).

But, hey, the wreckerator did actually put TAKS all in caps, so that's good, right?

you can totally tell on the last one that they went over the "Janbon TAKS" with white icing. i wonder what was under there before....*shudder*also, Jabon looks a lot like the french word "jambon" meaning ham.

I wonder if the radiation-inspired colors on the first cake are the school colors of yellow and blue and the Kroger baker decided to get "kr8iv." There's no excuse though for the writing that looks it was done by a tired 8 year-old.

Perhaps there is a reason I left being a public high school English teacher behind and now proofread ads (oh yeah, you read that right: Someone DOES have to do it). But one coworker and I now think we should abandon ship and proofread cakes instead. Clearly, our frosting people need us.I also must say, as I'm new here and still plowing through all of last year's entries, I CANNOT believe I missed the book tour, as you came right through my town. Your evil henchpeople must, must spread the word about this blog to everyone they know! No one must ever miss a Cake Wrecks tour again (SOB!).

I second Jennie about the getting sick of exemplary, but it is a nice accomplishment. I moved to TX in high school (went to an exemplary high school) and got to take the benchmark (i.e. test test) for the benchmark for the TAAS (Texas Assessment of Academic Skills, the predecessor of TAKS), then take TAAS, then SET the benchmark the brand new TAKS twice, both years I was in the state. O.o I was soooo tested out.

I haven't decided how I feel about the sarc mark yet. My friends and I always would just write what we were saying and at the end type /sarcasm to indicate we were done being snarky. So the idea is sound, but the mark itself looks a bit silly ; )

@Fanboy Wife

I plead the fifth about the taste of the cake. The caterers who made it usually make a really fabulous spread of fantastic food, so I don't want them to think people are ungrateful ; )

So, I do not plan on trying to defend any of these cake decorators, but I am a cake decorator for a grocery store, but unlike any of these cakes, my colleague and I care greatly for our cakes and make sure they are presentable.

But, working in this industry, I know that some of these mistakes could have been prevented not by the decorator but by the person taking the order. The people taking the cake orders are not the brightest, causing misspelled words on the order forms all the time. But, unlike myself, these individuals obviously didn't care enough to find out more information.

Ahhhh--that TAKS test is from Texas--it's as much a joke as that cake. (not why I'm proud to be from Texas, I can assure you!) They have changed the name of the test so many times, who could keep track?

TAKS is the current state test in Taxas. As usual I got such a giggle out of the cakes, I sent a link around to my co-workers who also got a big chuckle. We wondered, what score did the wreckorater get on TAKS?

I shared this cael with oneo fmy classes and let them find the mistakes! They were aghast that anyone would expect to be paid for such work.

Thanks for this post from a teacher/cake decorator/long time reader/first time poster. It's slightly saddening but overall funny. I should post up the pictures of the cakes that we buy for the different school events. We've had some interesting ones.

The extra hilarious thing about the last cake is that it was probably made to reward kids after taking the TAKS test, AKA the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, the standardized test us chilluns in Texas have to take every year to determine whether or not we can progress to the next grade.

The FCAT...what a huge waste of time. I can just imagine the reaction if a cake showed up at my school after the FCAT looking like that TAKS cake. I mean really, who wouldn't want to do well when the reward is something so lovely?

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